


Man-Made Horrors

by iammemyself



Series: Arkhamverse [17]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Programmer Dad, Riddlerbots - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-09 06:57:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12882546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iammemyself/pseuds/iammemyself
Summary: Edward finally begins to realise just what it is he’s done.  Also known as ‘The Morality of Supervillains and their Sheltered Robot Children: A Discussion’.Note: this fic contains plot points for the next fic in the series, ‘Exit Strategy’.  Most of my fics are designed to be coherent in a series but also standalone, but this one is suggested reading for the next.





	1. Part One

Man-Made Horrors

By Indiana

 

**Characters: Edward Nygma, Riddlerbots (Alan, Ada)**

**Synopsis: Edward finally begins to realise just what it is he’s done.  Also known as ‘The Morality of Supervillains and their Sheltered Robot Children: A Discussion’.**

**Note: this fic contains plot points for the next fic in the series, ‘Exit Strategy’.  Most of my fics are designed to be coherent in a series but also standalone, but this one is suggested reading for the next.**

 

 

 

It was already one of those days.

When he woke up, his left arm was numb.  It took a minute or so for his foggy brain to figure out why: his hand had been pinned beneath his ribs and the mattress all night.  He grunted and rolled onto his back, wincing as the feeling began to return to his arm.  He didn’t want to get up.  He really, really did not want to get up.  He felt around on the nightstand next to him without looking in an attempt to find his phone; he did, only he accidentally sent it over the edge of the wood and it clattered onto the floor.  He sighed and waved a half-hearted goodbye to it.  Fine.  He didn’t need to know what time it was.  He would just stay here.

He couldn’t stay there, though.  There were things that needed doing.  Not least of which was that he needed a shower.  He knew his standards of hygiene had dwindled far below a place he would have been willing to admit to anyone, but in his defense it was very easy to forget how much time had gone by since he had done any laundry when it all seemed to be an eternal day that never ended.  The sun never really seemed to move in this city, and he spent much of his time crawling around below the surface anyway.  He slept more often during the day than he ended up doing at night.  His hand reached for his phone a second time before he remembered where it was now.  The floor.  He was going to have to sit up.

It was increasingly difficult to do this in the morning; age, poor diet, and excessive physical work all contributed to the degradation of his musculature and joints.  He wasn’t looking forward to going through that again, and he _was_ tired.  Sleeping sounded like a better idea.

But his scalp was beginning to itch and he was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the realisation he had no idea when he’d last washed his hair, or even really _combed_ it properly, for that matter, so he did force himself to sit and his back was not entirely pleased about this decision.  He sat there for a moment and tried not to rub his eyes.  They felt dry and the lids heavy.  His mouth was dry.  His hands were.  What a mess.

He reached down to the floor to find his phone and pressed the power button.  Two in the morning.  Definitely not a time a rational man would get _out_ of bed, if he didn’t have to.

He did have to, he reminded himself.

The rough and splintered floor had been somewhat bothersome the first while he’d been here, but now that the soles of his feet had been weathered by the amount of work he’d been doing, he barely felt it.  He looked at them against the floor for a minute, trying to decide if they were beyond hope.  No.  He was almost through with this mess.  He’d right things soon enough, before any permanent damage was done.

He picked up his glasses from the nightstand but did not put them on.  He was only going as far as the bathroom and he didn’t terribly need them for that.  He stood up slowly, trying to ignore the spike of irritation in his throat, but couldn’t and had to sit back down again as he was overtaken by one of his increasingly frequent coughing fits.  He knew full well what _that_ was a consequence of, and every day he promised himself he would quit was a day he couldn’t resist.  When he could breathe again, albeit not all that comfortably, he reached into the bedside table drawer and removed a kerchief.  He wiped his mouth and nose with it and folded it three times.  He put it on the table and stood up again, this time successfully, and walked out of the room and down the hall to the far end. 

It wasn’t in the best state of existence; this entire building was somewhat deteriorated.  He had the passing thought he’d had higher standards, once.  That he never would have stood for this sink of cracked porcelain and rusted iron.  The mirror… that told him a story he didn’t like thinking about.  He uncapped the toothpaste next to the sink and picked up his toothbrush.   He used it mechanically, not wanting to think too hard about the pattern.  He had to think about it, to ensure he did it properly, but if he got lost in it and paid _too_ much attention it would feel wrong and he would have to start over again.  He did not want this to be one of _those_ days.

He concluded that business successfully and without any hitches, though he had almost lost count for a moment there, and he used the somewhat smudged glass next to the sink to thoroughly rinse out his mouth.  He was very, very tempted to fill the glass and down it entirely, but he had a policy to never drink water from this city.  One never knew just what was in it.  He could be pushing his luck just by –

No, if he started to think that way he _was_ going to have one of _those_ days, and he had not in long enough he didn’t care to break the trend.

He had put his underclothes on the countertop and was looking somewhat distantly at the yellowing shower tiles and the black-spotted curtain, waiting for the water to approach something other than arctic, when he heard a noise behind him which was promptly accompanied by, _Hi Dad!_

He closed his eyes in exasperation.  He knew Alan had his best interests at heart, perhaps _too_ often, but it was still frustrating at times to know he was not going to be left alone even if he was in the bathroom.  “I’m taking a shower, son,” he said, trying to pretend he wasn’t irritated.  He could not confidently say it had worked. 

_I think it’s a weird time to take a shower._

“It is,” Edward said, having even more difficulty controlling his voice.  “But it’s the time I’ve chosen.  Don’t you have anything to be doing?”  Anything else.  Anything.  He stepped into the shower and wrinkled his nose when the water proved to be lukewarm still.

_I just wanted to see how you were doing._

Alan was very, very good at making him feel guilty.  There was no one else on the entirety of the planet who had ever managed that feat, but _Alan_.  He was unreasonably skilled at doing it just about every single day.  He looked through the shower curtain, where he could just see Alan’s luminescence.  “I’m fine, Alan, thank you.”

Alan, of course, did not go anywhere, merely climbed onto the countertop to wait.  For what, Edward didn’t know.  He had never managed to figure it out.

The first application of shampoo was unsuccessful, and the second was not that great either.  The third, though, he was able to work up a good lather, and he spent a good amount of time pressing his fingers into his scalp not because he thought it would get his hair any cleaner, but because it had been a while since he had allowed himself to enjoy something simple like that.  This was followed up with the thought that personal enjoyment had been something he had been engaging in less and less, and what was the point of living like that?, but he quashed that as quickly as it had arrived.  He would continue his patience and it would all come back to him in spades.  He was due.  He really was.

The remaining duration of the shower was not as enjoyable, because when he opened his eyes again after rinsing his hair out thoroughly he was faced with the fact that this shower was one that belonged in a shoddy downtown YMCA and should never have been graced with the Riddler’s presence, and he unfortunately had to fall into another mechanical pattern to distract himself from that fact.  When his skin started crawling, things were getting bad, and when things were getting bad he needed to change situations as quickly as possible.  This spoiled the enjoyable setup washing his hair had created, which he could not say wasn’t disappointing.  But that was another thing he couldn’t think about too hard.

When he stepped out Alan, of course, had not moved, and Edward decided just to briskly dry his hair with the towel whilst ignoring him.  The whole time he did it he was well aware that was not helpful to his undoubtedly already abused locks, but it was an attempt at recreating the simple enjoyment of shampooing it and it almost worked.  He wrapped the towel around his waist, though he didn’t really need to at this point, and looked at the underclothes he’d taken off.   Why hadn’t he brought any fresh ones with him?

_Are you going back to bed?_

“No,” Edward said.  “I’m up.”

Alan jumped off the counter.  _I’ll make you tea, then._   And he left, presumably to do that, while Edward stood there and tried to stop bitterly grinding his teeth.  His ire was directed towards himself.  He never treated Alan as he deserved, and the boy always just took it.

He wasn’t really able to see himself through the fog on the mirror, but he was now too annoyed with himself to shave and so decided it could wait until the next day.  Now he had to guess what Alan was going to do with the tea.  Take it down to the kitchen, probably.  Where he should probably eat.  Just thinking about making breakfast made him tired.  He rubbed his eyes, afterward sliding on his glasses and gathering his dirty clothes in one hand.  It was going to be a long, hard day.

Alan had not left the bedroom yet with the drink, so Edward just accepted it from him with murmured thanks after he put on his clothes.  Before attempting to swallow any of it he went into the dresser drawer below the one Alan was using and removed the revolver from the back of it, underneath a quantity of tightly rolled socks.  He knew it was loaded and that there were five rounds only, the first chamber empty both because that was what Jonathan had taught him and because it felt right that way.  But he still checked it three times to be absolutely certain.  He slid it into the inside of his suit jacket and sat down on the bed, picking up the tea.

 _What was that?_ Alan asked.  Edward had to think for a moment before he realised what he wanted to know.

“A revolver,” he said.  He pulled it out again and handed it to Alan so he could look at it.  “Don’t move anything.”  That would keep him from accidentally pulling the trigger or the safety.

 _What is it for_?

Edward took a sip.  Every tea Alan made was perfect because he was automatically able to calculate the exact peak times and temperatures in a way no one else ever could.  Edward wondered if he did it on purpose, or if it was innate.  “Hurting people.”

Alan looked at him sharply.

“I am very well known, but not very well liked,” Edward elaborated.  “There are many who would like to see me dead.  I would be a fool to leave this place without a means of defense.”  Or punishment, if necessary.

 _Why don’t people like you_?

Edward shrugged.  “I have no idea.”

Alan handed him the gun back and he replaced it in his pocket.  “It’s Jonathan’s,” he said conversationally.  “He showed me how to use it a great many years ago.  Where I come from… they are not quite so common.”

Alan tilted his head.  _What do you mean, ‘where you come from’?_

He found himself sighing unintentionally.  Good God, there were a lot of things Alan didn’t know.  But what use was it to tell him that there were other cities, countries, _continents_ out there that he would never really be able to understand?  Alan barely understood there was more than one _building_ in Gotham – not that he knew what Gotham was – because all of Edward’s properties were interconnected.  To his mind he lived in some very large, very disjointed house.  Which was fair.  But wrong.

“It’s a big world, Alan,” was all he said.  “Some people come a long way from where they were born.”

_Why did you come here and not stay there?_

Now _that_ was a long story.

“I wanted to start over.”  A summary, but a massively understated one. 

_Was it hard?_

“Everything’s hard.  The trick is doing it anyway.”  He stood up.  “I need licorice.  Do you want to tag along?”

 _Sure_ , Alan said, and he followed closely, as usual.  Edward was a little conflicted.  He had half hoped Alan would say no, because he also needed to buy cigarettes, but he had resolved to stop doing that with his son around.  When he weighed which he'd rather have at any given notice, his son was the obvious answer without any hesitation.  But he still had the almost irrepressible urge to take the pack out and count how many he had left, even though he already knew it was five.  He focused on remembering there were five so that he wouldn't have to look.  There were five.  He knew that.  He had made sure there were five.  Five would last him two days if nothing happened. 

Something was going to happen, though.  He didn't know what, but something.  Something always came along to corrupt the perfection of his plans.  He almost needed a cigarette right now just thinking about all of this.  But he wasn't going to have one.  They were supposed to last two more days.

“All right,” was all he said, and he directed his feet into the first pair of shoes he found.  They were his steel-toed ones, which did not go with his outfit at _all_.  Oh well.  He returned to the drawer and removed an appropriate amount of cash from the back of it.  When he exited the room and made his way downstairs, Alan followed in silence.

It was a little odd, Edward thought as he walked, that Alan always came with him on these errands and not Nikola.  That was what Nikola was _for_.  A six-foot robot was bound to be _somewhat_ of a deterrent, and Alan _was_ strong.  But he was a pacifist.  And he had no software that told him what to do in an antagonistic situation anyway.  No man would _dare_ try to cross Nikola’s path, and despite that Edward had never brought him anywhere.  Well.  Nikola did not have much of an attention span, nor any real regard for his own existence, let alone Edward’s.  He had turned the idea over a few times of improving upon Nikola’s AI, but he seemed content as he was and Edward did not really have the time anyway.   

"Hey, freak!"

He preferred not to be called that but it wasn't the first time he'd been addressed as such and so he blinked out of his thoughts to direct his attention to the speaker, whomever and wherever they were.  He never saw them.

There was an iron hand on his left shoulder suddenly, and before he could remove the infernally disrespectful thing there was a hard fist deep in his gut and he couldn't breathe.  The excruciating pain drove him to his knees and his vision blackened. 

"My brother says hello," a distant voice above him said, and it was almost a mercy he'd been hit in the stomach first because he never felt the impact of the boot against his ribs; he only even knew it had happened because when he opened his eyes again he was lying on the ground and his glasses some few inches away.  He knew far, far too well where this was going and fought to right himself, but there was still no air in his lungs and all he managed was to push himself about a foot off the dirt.  He forced himself to focus on it.

_You're going to die here, you know._

He concentrated on taking a breath.  He managed to snatch a piece of one and it helped. 

_The Riddler, beaten to death in the dirt of an alley by a petty thug.  How dignified._

He almost took a whole breath that time.  No no no, he was _not_ going to meet his end here.  That was ridiculous.  He just had to gather himself, and then -

He suddenly had the intense need to vomit, and he shook his head in frustration but his bronchitis came back in full force, now that he could almost breathe again, and in the midst of the coughing his stomach brought up the tea he'd had earlier.  He struggled to stop the fit, knowing the man was still somewhere behind him and -

Wait.  How had he had so much time to catch his breath?  He retched a final time and managed to look behind him.

The world seemed to slow, and the air took on a chill that went beyond physical notice.  His fresh inability to breathe had nothing to do with having the air knocked out of him.  Before he had even truly registered what was going on he knew he had to stop it. 

Alan had his arm pressed into the man’s neck.  Alan had forced the man to his knees, and Alan was carefully leaning over him, and as the man was bloodying his fingernails uselessly against something that would never, ever give, Alan was very calmly waiting for the moment the man stopped moving. 

Edward thought, for a hopeful second in his dizzy haze brought on by pain and breathlessness, that he was imagining it.  It wasn’t real.  It couldn’t be real.  If someone had come up to him and told him this was happening, he would not have believed it.  But here it was.  In front of him.  His kind, thoughtful, empathetic boy was choking the life out of a man without a second thought.

This was what he had turned Alan into.

“No,” he gasped.  He barely even heard himself.  Alan looked up.

 _No?_ he said.

“No,” Edward managed.  He still could only take a fraction of a breath at a time.  “Let him go.  Let him go, son.”

Alan looked back at the man for a moment and then released his arm with an offhand nonchalance that froze Edward to the core.  That was _exactly_ what Edward would have done.  He had noticed, of course, Alan picking up on his gestures quite on purpose, but that... that didn’t look like Alan.  It _couldn’t_ be Alan.   

Alan stood up as the other slumped over the ground, one hand pressed to his throat as he choked in air.  Edward forced himself to stand.  It hurt.  A lot.  His ribs burned and his hand twitched almost of its own will towards his stomach.  He nearly stumbled as he closed the distance between himself and his son. 

_Dad?_

Edward stopped in front of him and looked down at the man below them.  He had a few seconds at least before he tried to escape.  Edward pointed behind him, in the direction of the store just visible in the distance.  He clenched his hand at his side when he realised how badly it was shaking.  “You know what I… what we were here for,” he said.  When would he be able to take a full breath?  “Go and… please.  I’ll be there in a minute.”

 _Okay_ , Alan said, and Edward watched him to make sure he left.  He was suddenly, acutely aware of how little he knew about raising children, even children that largely raised themselves.  But he did know he could not allow his son to see this.

He took a minute to catch his breath with more focus as he looked around for his gun.  It must have slipped out of his pocket as he fell.  Where had he dropped it?  His glasses were God knew where.  He squinted into the darkness for the barest glint of the metal.  There!  He almost fell over when he bent for it.  He managed to keep it to a gasp of pain and a hand around his waist in a futile attempt to stem the damage done, picking up the gun after his fumbling fingers managed to do so. 

“Wait,” the man said, his own voice restricted.  “Wait, man.  Wait.”

Edward stood straight and brought the gun into his left hand, looking down over that shoulder towards the man there.  “This is not a negotiation,” he said.  His voice, somehow, was clear.

“You don’t need to kill me,” the man protested.  He was on his back, holding his hands out in front of him.  “Look.  I’m sorry.  I made a mistake.  You can let me go and you’ll never hear from me again.”

Edward shook his head slowly.  “That’s not how this works.  You knew that.”

“Please,” the man started, but was interrupted when Edward raised the gun. 

“Shut up,” Edward said.  He felt dizzy.  He needed to sit down.  “If this were some other circumstance, I would be thanking you.  Your actions showed to me something I needed to see.  But as it is, I see no need.  That revelation will die with you.”

“No!”  The man attempted escape by scrabbling backwards on his knees and elbows, but Edward turned, took one step forward and fired the gun three times.  The first shot landed in the hollow of his cheek; the second shattered the top of his lip.  The third entered his skull just to the left of his nose and he fell silent and still. Edward turned towards the store.  God, it seemed so far away.  There was something trickling into his brain that gave him the impression his leg hurt.  It was likely it had been bruised and he wouldn’t be able to see it anyway but to get the feeling to go away he leaned over pulled at the cuff of his pants.  His clouded brain was unable to make sense of why he could not move it any farther than his shin when his forearm connected with something sharp.  He grasped it a little more tightly than he should have, but his glove prevented anything other than a dull pain.

There was a piece of glass in his leg.

Of all the… he sighed in exhausted resignation and just pulled it out, throwing it away without much effort.  Great.  Great.  It hurt to breathe.  It hurt to bend over.  Now walking was going to hurt.  He was too old for this. 

He made his way over to the store.  He only managed it because he stopped paying attention to anything at all.  When he had the dull sensation that there was some light hurting his eyes he returned to himself and looked around to see that he was about ten feet from the side wall, where Alan was sitting.  He realised he still had the gun in his hand and returned it to its place beneath his jacket.

He sat down next to his son, leaning tiredly against the wall.  For once he didn’t care about the illicitness that happened against the brick of convenience stores.  Alan handed him a bottle of water, slick with condensation, which Edward pressed against his budding headache.  The nausea was determined to return as well, bolstered by his sudden, acute notice of the crust in his nose and the sourness clinging to the inside of his mouth.  He reached into the side of his jacket that did not contain the gun for a handkerchief and held it against his nose.  The mint lotion on it helped settle his stomach.

 _Where are your glasses, Dad_?

Tabarnac.

He looked around for them before remembering they’d fallen off his face a ways from here.  He stared fruitlessly into the darkness ahead of him.  “I… dropped them.”

 _I’ll find them_ , Alan said, standing up and putting a hand on his shoulder.  Before Edward could think to say otherwise he had already left.

He might as well take the opportunity to rinse his mouth out.  He used some of the water to do that and then blew his nose.  When he went to put the folded cloth back into his jacket his fingers brushed the box of cigarettes there.  Damn.  He wouldn’t have time to get more before Alan came back, even if he _had_ felt able to stand just then.  But now he knew they were there, he needed one.  He had some instinct it would help him feel better.  He knew that was an illusion, and any relief was temporary only.  But there he was doing it anyway.  The larger temptation he truly did need to avoid was the desire to count the remaining ones in the box as though he could not see clearly in his mind how many he had left.  Three, he had three.  Three was enough until the day after tomorrow.  The cigarette had finished calming his stomach but was worsening his headache. 

 _Here_ , Alan said, and when Edward looked up he found Alan there, holding out his glasses.  He dropped the cigarette and accepted them.  He had no handkerchiefs left so the corner of his jacket had to do for a quick cleaning, and when he did slide them onto his face it was very helpful to be able to see clearly again.

Alan sat back down and folded his hands together.  That usually meant he wanted to say something he knew Edward didn’t want to talk about.  Edward took a steadying breath.

“What?”

 _I could have done it for you_ , Alan said.  Edward looked at him sharply.

Damn.  Alan had _tricked_ him!  The glasses had been an excuse to see what the gunshots had meant!

“No.  You couldn’t have.”  His voice was too harsh, and he knew that, but he couldn’t be bothered to change it. 

_I could have.  I just needed –_

“Alan,” Edward interrupted, wishing he hadn’t dropped the cigarette.  He could really have used the other half.  “Do you remember when I told you what a parent is supposed to want?”

 _I do_ , Alan said.  Edward trapped the water bottle beneath his knees and focused on the crunching noise it made.  Alan didn’t understand.  Getting angry with him was… wrong.  _You said it was to ensure their children achieved greater things than they ever could._

Had _he_ said that?  He _had_ said that.  It sounded like a good answer.  Was that the right answer?  Was that the _aim_ of parenting?  Was that what _he_ thought it was?  Was he _right_?

“If I allowed you to kill a man in front of me,” Edward continued, “it would have crossed that line.  And I cannot let you cross a line you have no knowledge of.”

Alan leaned forward.  _What’s the line, then?_

Edward rubbed his thumb against the side of the bottle cap for a moment.

“The line,” Edward told him, “is morality.”

A man without morals was about to explain them to a son who knew nothing and had to take everything he said as the truth.  What a mess.  What did he even _care_ if his son became immoral? 

 _You’re about to explain to him why you care_ , some voice in the back of his head told him, and he frowned at it.  His headache was worsening.

“You know only what I’ve taught you, directly or indirectly,” he continued.  “I never taught you morals, and so to allow you to make such a decision without your being able to weight one side against the other would be negligent.  I’m not going to pretend to be the most upstanding or attentive parent.  But I do know killing is something you need to be able to make an informed decision about before you do it.  And thus far your only concept of right and wrong pertains to what is right and wrong towards _me_.  Do you even know what death is, Alan?”

_It’s being asleep for a really long time._

“Forever,” Edward corrected.  “It is forever.  And the process of killing someone hurts not only that person, but everyone close to them.  Removing the life from a man creates an outward ripple that touches many who knew him.  And for many of those, it negatively affects their own lives for a long time thereafter.”

 _So what you’re saying,_ Alan said, leaning back against the wall, _is that killing is wrong._

“In any circumstance where there are alternate solutions, yes.”

 _Why is it wrong_?

Edward had to think about that one for a moment.  He had the feeling he knew the answer, but had put it aside many years ago.  He decided on, "Hurting others for your own gain is wrong.”

_You killed that man when you didn’t need to?  Is that what you mean?_

“For that specific situation, yes.”

_And he hurt you when he didn’t need to?  And that was wrong?_

He had certainly _thought_ he needed to.  “Yes.”

Alan went quiet, which was a mercy in all honesty.  His head hurt and Alan’s questions never helped.  He always asked so many things Edward didn’t know how to answer, and didn’t _want_ to answer.  If he were a mite more ignorant, this would all have been so much easier.

_You’ve killed a lot of people.  And hurt them.  For your own gain._

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know where this was going.  “I have.”

Alan was pulling on one of his thumbs.  _Dad?_

“Yes, son.”

_Does it make me a bad person if I love a bad person?_

Alan may as well have just stabbed him in the chest, rather than said that.  He swallowed and wiped some of the water off the side of the bottle. 

He didn’t _have_ an answer.  He especially didn’t have the _right_ answer.   But he couldn’t say that, couldn’t just say _I don’t know_ and leave Alan to work it out for himself.  This was his _job_ , this was what he’d signed up for.  Not on purpose, but here he was.  He had to face it.  He had to give his son the answer to his question, and the right answer, no matter what that meant.  He didn’t want to, because all he _really_ wanted to do was stand up and yell, _I don’t know!_ and then walk away with manufactured anger attempting to hide his discontent.  But Edward had contrived a world in which he was the only place for answers to be found, and so he had to provide one.

His mouth had suddenly become very dry, which gave him an excuse to delay talking.  Once he’d drank a little he said, “It doesn’t.”

He didn’t know if that was the right answer.  All he knew was that Alan was a good person, a better person than he would ever be, and he had not allowed him to kill that man – the consequence of Edward’s actions – because he had wanted him to stay that way.  Now Alan was learning what he was, what Edward had always known he was, and he was actively deciding for himself what he wanted to be.  Edward didn’t know if his answer was honest or merely a reflection of what he wanted.  But it was the only answer he had.

“It’s not their actions that matter.  It’s yours.” 

Alan nodded slowly to himself.  Then he said, in earnest, _I’ll help you be a good person too, Dad._

Unmitigated rage burned in his chest suddenly, and somehow he stood without too much trouble.  He knew, on some level, this reaction was unfounded, but the implications brought to mind so many years of so many _doctors,_ and when he realised he had crushed the water bottle in one hand he threw it down.  “Are you trying to _fix_ me now?  Is that it?”

 _No, Dad_ , Alan said, and for some reason he seemed surprised.  _I don’t think being a good person would fix you._

Even this was offensive, somehow.  Anger paralysed his tongue and he couldn’t seem to release his fists.  _But I think it would make you happier,_ Alan continued, seemingly oblivious.  _I want you to do what you want, if that makes you happy.  But from what I’ve seen, you do a lot of bad things that you seem to_ want _to do, but they don’t make you very happy at all.  Being a bad person seems to mean you can do whatever you want, but if you aren’t happy doing that why don’t you try something different?_

“Morality,” Edward spat.  “What good has that _ever_ done me?  I’ll tell you what being morally upstanding means, Alan.  It means people _taking_ from you.  They _take_ and they _take_ and they _take,_ and when you have nothing left to give they condemn you for not having given more.  You receive nothing in return.  If you’re lucky, some measure of personal satisfaction will come to you, but you dare not voice it else people tell you the _true_ reason for your actions is accolade, and so you are not a good person at all.  The difference between doing right and wrong is letting people destroy you or having the freedom to destroy yourself.”

He turned around then, not knowing or caring if Alan intended to answer.  _But Dad_ , Alan said, _why did you explain it in terms of what others think of you?_

“What?” Edward snapped, looking behind him.  Alan stood up.

 _Others being wrong about your intentions doesn’t change the kind of person you are.  That’s a reflection of them, not you.  It’s like you just told me.  It’s your actions that matter, no one else’s._ He tapped his thumbs together pensively.  _If you know what you are, you don’t have to let other people tell you._

“It’s not that simple,” Edward protested.  But how could he _possibly_ explain it to him?  How could he tell Alan of the overwhelming need to please everyone at all times, the desire for complete and total approval, the pressure to be everything anyone could ever want?  And the mentality of people to take the lowest common denominator of a man and hold it up as the very essence of his being?  Alan did not _understand_ that anyone could be as good of a person as they had the ability to be, and it still would not be good enough.  It would still not be worth it, when a world hungering for the smallest of threads to unravel could bring a lifetime of selfless efforts down upon one’s head.

But no.  All of that was exactly Alan’s criticism of his first explanation.  The ill-desire of others said nothing about a person as a whole, especially when all they were willing to consider was the smallest mistake one had made.  He had nothing further to say.  Alan was not wrong.

And therefore Edward had snapped on him for nothing.  Alan did not need to know why it mattered to Edward.  He did not _want_ him to know.  It was selfish to have his son’s world built around himself.  But at least he would never have to know the need to garner everyone’s approval, everyone’s respect.  He had one person to look up to, as opposed to many who would fail him again and again.

This implied Edward had not failed him already, and nothing today indicated he hadn’t.  God save the real children he doubtless had out there in the multiverse.

He didn’t want to talk about this anymore.  He didn’t want to _think_ about it anymore, either, but he was going to.  Ohhhh was he going to.  He made the decision to head back to the Orphanage now, before he was able to feel his body again.  If Alan had anything further to say about this – and Edward fervently hoped he did not – he could do so later. 

He had not been ready to have children.  Nor, the suspicion came upon him, would he ever have been.  His every action, his every _thought_ , now carried a weight he could not endure.

If he had known someone to give them away to, he would have done it then and there.

 

//

 

As soon as he returned to the Orphanage, Edward had mechanically begun to clean himself up.  It had taken far too long and he had brushed his teeth far too many times, and by the time he’d finished that business he was very, very tired.  But he already knew going to bed would be stupid, because then he would be able to _think_ , and he didn’t want that.  So he instead went down to the factory floor and sat down in front of the computer there.  He had debugging to do, which was a boring and minimally engaging task that would both enable him to be productive and yet not have to actually use his brain that much.  His headache had faded, but breathing was distractingly painful and he had to take a moment just to try and process it so he could ignore it.  God, how _inconvenient_ that had been!  He rested his head in one of his hands and closed his eyes for a minute.

 _Hi Dad_.

Oh, no.

Edward sat back slowly in the chair and looked behind him.  “What is it,” he said, trying not to sound too flat. 

 _Your glasses came.  I brought them for you._   He came forward and put them on the desk.  _And… Ada was looking for you.  I told her you weren’t feeling well so she got you these._

‘These’ were a handful of somewhat wilted flowers, pansies mostly because those were her favourite.  There was a flower shop she liked to take them from when no one was looking.  He looked at his desk even though he already knew he had nothing to put them in.  “Thank you.”

Alan stepped back, twisting his foot to leave, when he seemed to think better of it and asked, _Why are you sad_?

Edward frowned, wondering where he’d gotten _that_ from, before he realised Alan was misreading the situation.  “I’m not sad, Alan.  I’m… it’s just like you said.  I’m not feeling well.”

_Are you sick again?_

“No.”  He didn’t _think_ he was, anyway.  “I was injured.  You know that.”

Alan tilted his head.  _But that was a while ago._

He tried not to become irritated.  “It was two hours ago.”

Alan looked at the floor for a moment.  _Yes.  It was.  So why are you still not feeling well_?

“An injury doesn’t last one day,” Edward told him, believing he’d figured out where Alan was getting stuck.  “It lasts several.  The worse it is, the more painful it is, and for longer.  It doesn’t just hurt once and then it goes away.”  He knew Alan wouldn’t understand this next part, but he said it anyway.  “Sometimes it never does.”

 _That’s terrible,_ Alan said.  Edward grimaced a little.

“It’s life.”

_Can I see it?_

“Maybe,” Edward said.  “I don’t know if the bruising has started yet.”  He hadn’t wanted to look.  But if it helped Alan understand, he’d show him what was there, if anything. 

When he’d taken his shirts off he was aghast to see there was indeed bruising, and a great deal of it too: the left side of his stomach and the right side of his ribs were both already mottled severely with blue and purple.  He had to look away from it, but Alan touched it, very softly.  Edward always forgot that his hands were going to be cold.

 _Dad_ , Alan said, taking his hand back very slowly and curling it into a fist.

“What.”  He put his undershirt back on and looked back at the other one, trying to decide if it would be worth the pain in his ribs to put that one on too.

_Looking at that makes me angry._

It was not the time to be thinking about his clothes.  He turned the chair around all the way to face Alan, draping one arm on the desktop.  “You’ve never been angry before.”

Alan shook his head.  Edward considered the floorboards.  They were torn up a little from the chair wheels.  He should have known that would happen.

 _What do I do_? Alan asked, with just enough desperation that it tightened Edward’s chest.  His poor son.  Stuck with a father who didn’t know what to say or had any idea of where to find the words from.

What would _he_ have wanted _his_ father to say, all those years ago?  What was a person _supposed_ to do with their anger, rather than allow it to dictate and consume their entire life?  He didn’t want Alan to do that.  He didn’t want him to know what that was like.

Maybe he was thinking about it too broadly.  It wasn’t merely about anger here.  He couldn’t tell him to disregard _all_ forms of it; that was foolish.  But when you felt angry about something you couldn’t change, that you never could have changed and you never could change in the future… what should you do with it?

“Nothing,” Edward said finally, looking up at him.  “There’s nothing you _can_ do.  It’s over.  Let it go, son.  It won’t do anything for you now.”

Unsatisfied he’d given the right answer, he turned back to the monitor, looking dully at his keyboard.  He again wished he knew another man he could give Alan to.  A better man.  One who already had a son or two so he already knew exactly what to do.  This was one of the long list of reasons why he’d never wanted a son in the first place.  “It wasn’t like I didn’t deserve it anyway,” he said, mostly to himself.  Alan heard him, of course, and invited himself onto the desktop. 

_You did?_

Edward looked up at him tiredly.  “Do you understand who that man was?”

_He was… the brother of the person who wouldn’t listen to you a few days ago._

“And whom I killed.  He was angry over the loss of his brother.”

_But why did you deserve it?_

Edward sighed through his nose and sat back in the chair again.  “How would you feel if someone killed Ada?”

Alan folded his hands together.  _Sad.  I would want to do something about it, maybe._

“That’s what he did.  I was the reason his brother was dead and so he wanted to kill me as revenge.”

Alan’s tone turned solemn.  _You must be very brave._

He frowned.  “Brave?”

Alan nodded.  _You do lots of things to people all the time that they maybe don’t like.  Lots of them probably want to hurt you.  But you keep doing it anyway._

Edward shrugged, resting his arms on either side of the chair.  “I could hurt myself walking up the stairs.  That doesn’t mean I’m never going to use stairs again.  That would be utterly ridiculous.”

Alan laughed, and he had to smile at that.  He still was unsure he’d said the right things, but Alan seemed calm and to have accepted it.  He would have to wait to know.  No need to worry about that now, however.

_Can I hug you, Dad?  It looks like it might hurt if I do._

“Go ahead.”  It _was_ going to hurt, and it did a great deal even though he could tell Alan was being careful, but he wasn’t going to refuse his son such a thing. 

Alan jumped off the desk after this and twisted one of his thumbs in his hand for a moment.  _I hope you feel better, Dad._

Truthfully, he did.


	2. Part Two

Part Two

 

 

"Hey, freak!"

He preferred not to be called that but it wasn't the first time he'd been addressed as such and so he blinked out of his thoughts to direct his attention to the speaker, whomever and wherever they were.  He never saw them.

There was an iron hand on his left shoulder suddenly, and before he could remove the infernally disrespectful thing there was a hard fist deep in his gut and he couldn't breathe.  The excruciating pain drove him to his knees and his vision blackened. 

"My brother says hello," a distant voice above him said, and it was almost a mercy he'd been hit in the stomach first because he never felt the impact of the boot against his ribs; he only even knew it had happened because when he opened his eyes again he was lying on the ground and his glasses some few inches away.  He knew far, far too well where this was going and fought to right himself, but there was still no air in his lungs and all he managed was to push himself about a foot off the dirt.  He forced himself to focus on it.

_You're going to die here, you know._

He concentrated on taking a breath.  He managed to snatch a piece of one and it helped. 

_The Riddler, beaten to death in the dirt of an alley by a petty thug.  How dignified._

He almost took a whole breath that time.  No no no, he was _not_ going to meet his end here.  That was ridiculous.  He just had to gather himself, and then -

He suddenly had the intense need to vomit, and he shook his head in frustration but his bronchitis came back in full force, now that he could almost breathe again, and in the midst of the coughing his stomach brought up the tea he'd had earlier.  He struggled to stop the fit, knowing the man was still somewhere behind him and -

Wait.  How had he had so much time to catch his breath?  He retched a final time and managed to look behind him.

The world seemed to slow, and the air took on a chill that went beyond physical notice.  His fresh inability to breathe had nothing to do with having the air knocked out of him. 

Alan had his arm pressed into the man’s neck.  Alan had forced the man to his knees, and Alan was carefully leaning over him, and as the man was bloodying his fingernails uselessly against something that would never, ever give, Alan was very calmly waiting for the moment the man stopped moving. 

He watched the desperate struggling of the man in Alan’s grip.  It was poetic, almost, the way he didn’t give up even though victory was impossible.  Alan remained silent and steadfast throughout, even as he unblinkingly watched the agony flickering through the man’s eyes.

When the man was dropped to the ground, lifeless, Edward expected Alan to walk over to him, ask if he was all right, and help him up.  But he didn’t.  He just gave Edward a long, cold look and walked away.  He knew, somehow, that he would not be seeing him again.

He’d finally done it.  He had finally destroyed his son.  He’d crossed the line.  He’d made his son like himself.

For some reason this realisation brought with it a shortness of breath and a strange awareness that his senses were placing him in a different place than what he could see, and on top of that his eyes seemed to be closed.  He opened them to see… nothing.  His face was on top of his arms.  His nose was against rough wood, cut recently.  Once he recognised the steady beat of machinery at work he felt himself calming.  He sat up.

It hadn’t happened.  He’d done the right thing.  He had told his son not to kill that man, and it had been the right thing.  He’d somehow gotten that right.  It took him a minute to catch his breath before he felt gathered enough to see what was going on behind him.

He turned around to see Alan and Ada on the floor with the pages torn out of a colouring book he’d found for her some time ago.  They were using crayons and Ada really _didn’t_ have any regard for the lines.  He was a little envious of her for a moment.  He tried to imagine colouring outside the lines and failed.

 _Hi Dad!_ Ada said cheerfully, waving at him, and he smiled and waved back.  She made him feel lighter just by existing.  He didn’t spend enough time with her.

He would, when this was over.  He would.

 _I’ll make you tea if you want, Dad,_ Alan said, and he looked away, biting his tongue.  He tried to remind himself that the dream he’d had was not reality, but the fact that the first part of the dream had been identical to his memory of the event was making him unsure.  It would take a little while until he was awake enough to separate the two.

Alan stood up.  _I’ll bring it.  If you decide you don’t want it that’s okay._

“I have to go upstairs anyway,” Edward said, pushing his chair back from the desk.  He hadn’t eaten in… he didn’t want to think about how long it had been.  “You can stay here.”

Alan, of course, followed him anyway.

Since he was so set on it Edward let Alan make the beverage whilst he made himself some tuna salad sandwiches.  It wasn’t the healthiest lunch he’d ever made, but he still did not feel that wonderful and so was not in the mood to put the time in.  He noted Alan patiently watching the kettle and was abruptly reminded that he had recently… lashed out at him, as shameful as it sounded to admit solely to himself.  He should probably… apologise for that.  Alan would not bring it up out of courtesy, but that didn’t mean Edward should just allow it.  Not if he truly meant to do better.

He’d done it more often in these past few months than he had in his entire life, but for some reason apologising just was not getting any easier.  He put down the knife he’d been using to chop celery for his mixture.

“Alan, about earlier,” he began.  Alan looked over at him, and for a moment he was lost for words.  He stirred his salad as a momentary distraction.  “I apologise for yelling at you.  It was out of line.”

 _You know, that time I didn’t mind the yelling_ , Alan said, and Edward had to do an about-face. 

“What?”

Alan removed the tea bag from the box in the cupboard.  _I knew you were yelling because you would rather be angry than admit you’re upset.  What I didn’t understand was why you were upset when I wanted to help do what’s best for you, but I’m supposed to go along with it when you decide what’s best for me._

“I told you why I didn’t allow you to kill that man,” Edward said, lining up the bread on the countertop in an attempt to waylay his unease.  Alan put the empty package in the garbage and wrapped the string of the teabag around the cup handle.

 _Not that part.  But the details don’t matter.  The broader point is that you don’t trust me_.

Edward was so taken aback by this he dropped his knife on the floor.  He sighed in exasperation at the tuna salad now smeared across the floorboards.  He bent down to clean it up, wincing at the stabbing pain in his ribs.  “Of course I do.”

 _You don’t,_ Alan repeated.  _You trust me to do what you tell me to do.  But every time I make a decision for myself you tell me I’m wrong.  I know I can’t be right all the time, but neither can you._

That _hurt._

He gritted his teeth and stood back up, careful to face away from his son.  Tabarnac.  Alan wasn’t supposed to _know_ that yet!  Edward was supposed to have had more time! 

 _I’m tired of you telling me I don’t know what I want or that I don’t have the right answers_ , Alan was continuing, to Edward’s regret.  _I concede about the morality issue.  I didn’t know what it was or why it was significant, but I understand it now and I can apply it accordingly.  I still want to help you despite that, and I don’t just say that because that’s what I was made to do.  I_ like _doing it._

He was just saying that.

_I love you, Dad.  And I know doing that sometimes means forgiving the mistakes you make even when they really bother me.  But I’m not sure you really see me as a person, sometimes.  And I can’t keep letting that go.  I deserve your respect, and I’ve more than earned it by now._

Edward concluding building his sandwiches in silence.  He didn’t have anything to tell him.  He was right.  About all of it.  Seeing people _as_ people was something Edward had not done in a very long time.  It just wasn’t _useful_ in his line of work or the way he lived his life.  He had, in effect, forgotten how.

But now it was leading him to neglect his son.  He _was_ a person, and he _had_ earned Edward’s respect aeons ago.  He went to the sink with his dirtied dishes.  Every time it seemed as though he’d made some sort of advancement in his parenting, his error in judgement came back to scold him.

 _I don’t like upsetting you,_ Alan said, putting the used teabag into the garbage.  _But you always get upset when these kinds of things come up._

“You’re right,” Edward said, too bitterly, but he didn’t care enough to correct himself.  “What else do you want me to say?”

Alan kept disconcerting eyes on him.  _I would just appreciate it if you thought about what I’ve said._   He sounded so calm, so rational, and Edward hated it.  He would have preferred it if Alan had just _yelled_ at him.  But no.  Of course he wouldn’t.  He would deliver everything thoughtfully, he would refuse to give Edward anything else to focus on except for his words, and Edward would have no one to be upset with other than himself.  Again!

Edward was now wide awake and irritated.  He was sore from the assault and not altogether interested in eating but he did so anyway with as little attention as possible.  But he now found himself plagued with a line of thought he had been doing his best to ignore.

He was starting to run out of excuses for not doing better, not that they ever really should have been acceptable.  Alan had given him so many chances, had forgiven him so many times.  He was pressing his luck.  No.  Worse.  He was taking advantage. 

In fact, he was taking advantage of Alan’s desire to be a good person.  Alan wanted to do the right thing.  That was all he’d ever wanted, even before he’d really known what that was.  For the most part, ‘doing the right thing’ was merely ‘doing what benefitted Edward’.  It was becoming much more complex than that and Alan had started to realise it, to ponder it.  Edward, in all honesty, was having trouble keeping up.

When he had finished with that he made his way back upstairs, the gash in his leg not any less of an irritation than it had been yesterday, and when he got to his room he sat down on his bed and went to yank up his pantleg when he saw that it was already stained red.  He sighed laboriously.  Fabulous.  He pulled his pants off, sitting back down and leaning over to inspect the wound.  It had bled only briefly but it had made quite a mess.  He didn’t know if he even had the patience to deal with it right now.

 _That doesn’t look good_ , Alan said, and Edward looked up to see him standing in the doorway.  He discovered he was apprehensive about speaking to his son again.  He couldn’t improve instantly, but he had the creeping thought he was expected to.

He expected _himself_ to.  He couldn’t pin that on Alan.  That would be unfair.

“It’s fine,” he remembered to say.  “I’ll clean it soon.”

 _Okay,_ Alan said.  He entered the room and handed Edward a sheet of paper.

“And this is…”

 _You slept for two and a half hours,_ Alan told him.  _In the meantime I compiled a list of things I did that we can go and look over when you’re ready._

Oh.  The usual, then.  He looked down at the paper – at Alan’s neat, mechanical handwriting. 

He’d never taught Alan how to write. 

He was _supposed_ to have.  Was this a failing on his part, or a success in that Alan had learnt to do it on his own?  His eyes wandered as he tried to evaluate a sudden _weight_ in his chest.  It was… he didn’t know.  Something to do with the fact that Alan could write, and Edward had never shown him…

That wasn’t of import right now.  He refocused his eyes, alighting them on the first item on the list, and then he hesitated. 

_Dad?_

He handed the paper back without reading further.  Alan took a moment to accept it, and Edward hoped he understood.  Edward already spent too much time talking about doing things and not actually doing them.  He could have sworn Alan stood a little straighter. 

“I need to take care of this,” Edward said finally, gesturing to his leg.  Alan folded the paper into quarters. 

_I can help if you want._

“After I have a shower,” Edward told him.  “And you don’t have to follow me.  I’ll wait.”

And he did as he’d said after washing up, sitting down on the dollar-store bath towel he was using as a rug and sitting there quite patiently with his legs laid out and a similar towel across his lap.  Alan appeared a minute or so later and removed the first aid kit from the cupboard, carefully laying out what he needed.  Edward appreciated his meticulousness but also wished he would hurry up.  His injury stung considerably and there was enough blood beading from it that it was starting to run down his leg.

It was calming, really, to watch as Alan dabbed away the blood and pressed a gauze pad, perfectly sized, to the injury once it was more or less clean.  His three parallel strips of adhesive were also perfect, and when he had concluded Edward noted that he was replacing the items he’d removed from the kit in the exact reverse order as he’d done to begin.  Edward rubbed around the gauze with one finger.  It was irritated, but not quite itchy.  “Thank you,” he said.  Alan paused in replacing the scissors.

 _You’re welcome_ , he said.  As he finished what he was doing Edward stood, hanging up the two towels and returning to his room.  He was half-dressed when Alan came back.

 _You know,_ Alan said, as Edward was pulling on his undershirt, _Ada was asking me to wake you up so you could colour with her._

Edward focused on tucking the shirt in.  “Was she.”

 _Dad, is your job_ really _the most important thing to you?_

He paused.  “I never said that.”

Alan was leaning against the doorway, not looking at him.  _What you spend your time doing does.  You said you were doing all of this as a favour to Jonathan.  And you said you’ve been doing it so long you don’t even know if you want to do it anymore.  Why don’t you just give it up?_

He gritted his teeth.  “I don’t give up, Alan.”

 _That’s a good trait to have,_ Alan conceded.  _But –_

“Alan,” Edward interrupted.  “I’m doing my best to listen to you.  That is a privilege few can say they have.  Question my priorities all you like.  This is my life’s work.  I cannot just ‘give it up’.  I can’t do that.  I told you I would move on after this is over and I will.  Please drop it.”

Alan was quiet for a moment.

 _I know it means a lot to you, but… what you do is dangerous.  I didn’t realise how much until I saw you get hurt like that._   He was inspecting the floor studiously.  _A lot of people must have it out for you.  You’ve been lucky a very long time._

He wanted to protest that it had nothing to _do_ with luck, it was about skill and power and intellect.  He bit his tongue in prevention.

_I don’t want to… see the day it runs out.  There’s only… there’s only so much of you I can fix, Dad._

And just like that, all offense melted out of him, drawing him to sit on the edge of the bed.  He rubbed at one side of his face.  He thought shaving could wait another day.  He wasn’t going out.

“The risk of bodily harm in this business is grave, I admit it,” Edward said.  “But if I’d stopped for such a reason, you would not be here today.  And that truly would be regretful.”

Alan looked up.

He folded his hands together.  “I cannot explain it to you,” he continued.  “I can’t tell you what it is to have a passion.  An all-consuming _need_ to do _one_ certain thing with your life.  It is dangerous.  It becomes worse for me by the day.  All of the criticisms you have are valid and true.  But I cannot make you understand why I do it anyway.  You’ve never felt it.  You’ve never had the burning need I have to do this one thing.  It’s not as easy as putting it aside, Alan.  I can’t stop in the midst of completion.  I must see it through. 

“I’m listening to you.  I am.  But this is more important to me than I can ever explain to you.”

His son stood silently in the doorway, and Edward looked away from him.  It wasn’t something Edward should have said.  Edward should have agreed with him, should have told him he was right and he would stop right then and…

And what?  He’d forever wonder what he’d left behind.  What he’d walked away from.  Jonathan notwithstanding, this was _what he’d spent his life doing_.  He knew it was his addiction, his obsession, he _knew_ that.  But it was also the very essence of his existence.  He couldn’t give it up, just like that.

At the same time he still felt guilty.  He could not split himself satisfactorily between his job and his children.  Was this normal?  What was supposed to take the hit, here?  What was he supposed to have said, what was he supposed to do?  He didn’t know.  There was no one to tell him.

 _Okay, Dad_ , Alan said finally.  _I don’t agree with you.  But I can’t criticise something I don’t understand._ And he turned around to leave.

“Alan.”

He paused.  Edward paused.  He had to fill it with something.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

He hadn’t known he was going to say that.  He hadn’t planned it.  But he was.  He couldn’t give Alan what he wanted, and he did feel bad about it. 

 _Okay,_ Alan said, and instead of leaving he came over and sat down next to Edward.  Edward had to close his eyes for a minute.  He’d done something right.  He’d pinpoint which part later.

 _Seeing you get hurt was really hard, Dad,_ Alan told him, and he had one finger very lightly running up a scratch on Edward’s arm.  _And that was before I knew it lasted a long time._

“It’s just how things are,” Edward responded.  “Don’t worry so much.”

_Maybe my passion is worrying about you._

Edward snorted.  “I hope not.  What a waste of your myriad skillsets that would be.”  He stood up and retrieved his shirt.  “But in any event, my task for today is quite banal.  I never finished that debugging I was doing.”

 _That_ is _boring,_ Alan said, standing as well.  _I’ll skip it.  But I meant to ask you something._

Putting on his shirt took so much of his attention he couldn’t answer immediately.  “What.”

_Is killing people hard?_

Oh, _no_.

He took as long a breath as his sore ribcage would allow and then slowly sat back down again.  This was not a mobile conversation.  “It depends on the kind of person you are.  For a good person, it will be impossible.  For a bad one, it can be done without a second thought.”

_Was it hard for you, the first time?_

He did not at all want to answer this.  He rubbed his palms together.

“The first time… it was a mistake.  I had been taught not to put my finger on the trigger if I was not prepared to fire, but I did it anyway.  It was a freak accident.  I had no intention of killing him; I just wanted to intimidate him a little.  So no, it was easy to kill him.  The hard part was… realising I wasn’t sorry.”

_You didn’t feel bad._

He shook his head.  “Not for a second.”

_And what did your dad say, when he found out you killed someone?_

He almost laughed.  What a quaint and innocent question.  “The first one I got away with.  The second, I was caught and they put me in a high-security prison.  My father found out and came to see me, and…”  He hadn’t thought about this in a long time.  He didn’t want to be thinking about it now.  “He just laughed.”

Alan took a step closer.  _He did?_

“I proved him right.”  Edward ran a hand through the back of his hair.  It was still wet.  “He found that very amusing.  He still does.”

 _He_ expected _you to grow up and kill people?_

He gave a half-shrug.  “I can’t say what he _expected._   He always told me I would grow up to disappoint him and that was the line, I suppose.”

_He said that to you?  More than once?_

Edward stood up abruptly.  “Alan, I don’t want to talk about this.”

 _But_ why _would he say that?  What did you do?_

“I didn’t _do_ anything!” Edward shouted, and Alan flinched.  “He didn’t _want_ me, Alan!  And every day of my life he made damn sure I knew it.”

 _I’m sorry,_ Alan said quietly.  _I don’t understand._

Edward threw up his hands.  “What don’t you understand?”

_Not being wanted by your dad._

He had to sit back down again.  He didn’t know what to do, or even how he should feel.  He removed his glasses with one hand and rubbed his eyes with the other.

 _I don’t understand any of it,_ Alan said helplessly.  _You’re a bad person and so is your dad.  No one ever showed you how to be good, or what being good meant.  But Ada and I both are.  Even Nikola.  How can you be bad but want so much for us to be good?  It doesn’t make any sense.  Why do you even care at all?_

“You’re supposed to be better than me,” was all he could come up with.

 _But_ why?

Edward got up again.

“I don’t have an answer for you,” he said shortly.  “And I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”

_But –_

“Sometimes there just is no reason, Alan,” he interrupted.  “Sometimes things just happen, and you just shut up and let them.”  And he started walking out of the room.

_No._

He halted.  “No?”

 _There’s always a reason for everything. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there._   He actually seemed… angry.  This was something new Edward was not at all prepared to deal with.  He had the feeling Alan would argue exactly the way Jonathan did.  _And I don’t appreciate you telling me to shut up when I’m trying to understand something just because you don’t want to talk about it._

“And _I_ don’t appreciate being made to talk about things I have expressly said I do not want to discuss!”

 _That’s fair_ , Alan said calmly.  Rage tore through his chest for a moment.  How in the _hell_ did he compose himself instantly like that?

 _I don’t know, Dad,_ Alan went on.  _You don’t feel anything if you kill someone, but if I did it you would feel guilty.  It’s almost as though you want me to be the person you think you can’t be.  But you_ could _be, if you wanted.  I don’t know why you tell yourself you can’t.  I know you said you have to finish what you’re doing, but after you could give it a try, couldn’t you?_

There was so much he did not understand that Edward did not want to explain.

“Alan,” he said, “I’ve done a lot of things.  A lot of terrible things.  You can’t just turn around and pretend it never happened.  And no amount of good deeds can ever make up for it.  You need to let this go.  I’m never going to be the person you thought I was, or whoever it is you think I can be.  You are the one good thing I’ve ever done or ever will do.”

 _But you can!_ Alan said, with an odd excitement.  _You’re going away after this.  To a place where no one knows you!  You_ can _pretend it never happened!  You can be someone new, someone… not even a good person, just a neutral one, maybe.  You can start over._

It was… strange, that that had never occurred to him. 

_No one ever has to know what kind of person you were here.  You can go there and be someone new.  You can be whoever you want.  This doesn’t have to mean anything to you anymore._

Did he even… want that?  To abandon this, and become someone new?  Someone… irrelevant?

His entire being balked at the thought.  The Riddler, reduced to some anonymous next-door neighbour!  Insulting!  Unheard of!  And –

_But you thought of this already, didn’t you?_

He could only fix his eyes on his feet like he’d done what felt to be several weeks’ worth of mornings ago, because somewhere down the line he had lost the ability to lie to Alan but he did not want to provide him the truth.  The truth he already knew.  The truth Edward had not known.

He was not at all ready to leave this country for another.  He had not acquired any documents for Jonathan.  He had not made any transportation arrangements, or gotten in touch with any contacts, or even come up with a place to go.  He had to open his mouth just to be able to breathe. 

How had he not noticed?

 _You’re not really planning on going, are you,_ Alan said quietly.  _You think you are.  But you’re not.  When this is done you’re just going to start all over again.  Like you always do._

There was a cold dripping in his gut that confirmed Alan was telling him a truth he hadn’t even known. 

_You know… it’s never crossed my mind for a second to ever leave.  But it just did right now.  For a second I really just… wanted to go somewhere else.  There’s something really wrong with you and I don’t know what it is, and you don’t… seem interested in finding out or fixing it.  And all this time you were promising you’d move on and stop doing this, you didn’t… you didn’t even mean it._

“Then go!” Edward snapped, and to his complete horror there was a terrible burning in his eyes all of a sudden.  “I told you to, didn’t I?”

 _I don’t think you know how hard it is for me to watch you kill yourself,_ Alan said.  _And I’ve… I’ve done everything I can think of, Dad.  I can’t help you.  Not because I’m not able, but because you won’t let me.  Because you don’t want me to.  You’re really just going to… keeping doing this until you die.  Until your luck runs out.  Like it almost did the other –_

“Don’t you hold that against me!” Edward shouted, turning to face him with one fist clenched so hard it almost went numb.  “Don’t you dare hold that over my head!”

Alan got up off the bed.

_What was the point of saving you if you just seem determined to keep putting yourself in harm’s way?_

There wasn’t one.  There was no point.  Nothing had a point.  Everything was pointless.

 _I don’t know what to do,_ Alan said quietly.  _I love you, Dad, but I don’t know what to do._

And Alan did leave then, and Edward was left there to press his forehead into the wall.      


	3. Part Three

Part Three

 

 

He hadn’t slept in two days, and in those two days he hadn’t heard from Alan, either.

He got a lot of work done.  It was easy when he needed something to do to keep his mind off of that whole horrible day.  Of course, the work only made him think about it more, because he was doing that and he still had done nothing to live up to the other promise he had made Jonathan, and he only continued to prove to himself that it was fine Alan left.  It was fine if he stayed away.  He had lied to Jonathan, and he had lied to Alan, and he had lied to himself, and really, all that could be done after all of that was the status quo.  He’d just do what he did best, and deal with it all later. 

Ada came to sit with him a lot, and for the first time he did not want her to.  He wanted to give her the transponder and tell her to go and find her brother, and go wherever he was, and leave Edward be.  It was clear he was unfit to take care of anyone.  He couldn’t even take care of himself.

He had not, before now, realised how much time he’d spent asking himself where his children were.  The answer was usually a simple one: nearby.  If Ada was not underfoot, she was likely to be in her room or playing with Nugget in the basement.  And if he didn’t know offhand, Alan always did.  But he was gone.  And not knowing where Alan was… it was _stressful_ beyond measure.  Every few seconds he would automatically ask himself why he wasn’t around, try to remember if he’d sent him to do something, and then cycle back to the realisation that he had _left_ , and Edward had _no idea_ where he was now.  It was _exhausting._   On top of this he had the irrational urge to go and check the transponder, which was probably useless – he had been unable to get significant range out of it underground – and which he had resolved not to use unless it was an emergency.

 _It_ is _an emergency._

Alan’s absence was like spontaneously losing his pinky finger: not essential by any means, and he could live without just fine, but doing it just felt _wrong_.  And the endless questions he had once found so irritating?  He kept trying to anticipate them, as usual, but they never came.  It was disorienting.  It was more annoying than the questions had ever been.

He’d never really… _missed_ anyone, before this.  He didn’t like it.  He wasn’t quite _sad_ , but it seemed as though there was an invisible arm preventing him from being far from.

 _He did what you wanted him to do.  What you_ drove _him to do.  You don’t get to sulk over it._

No, this wasn’t sulking.  This was… regret.  But it was the result of years upon years of actions he could not take back now – actions he was unsure he was even _ready_ to take back – and he knew that, so why did he still feel that way even though it was incredibly pointless?  He might as well just move on.  He’d repeated history just as he’d always known he would.   

 _Alan!_ Ada cried out, and she immediately stumbled to her feet and ran off somewhere behind him.  He resolved not to look and instead stared at a burn on his index finger.  He couldn’t remember how it had gotten there.  It didn’t hurt.

 _Hey you,_ Alan said.  And then he probably hugged her. 

_I missed you._

_I missed you too.  But do you want to go upstairs for a minute?  I need to talk to Dad._

He tried to pretend that didn’t make him feel hopeful for a second.  It didn’t work.  He probably just had one last thing to say, to really drive this mess home, which Edward really did not want to hear but he supposed he deserved.  He tried to resign himself to it.

When he heard Alan stop and kneel down behind him he decided it would at least be polite to acknowledge him.  “You’re back,” he said noncommittally.

_Just because you gave up on yourself doesn’t mean I did._

He hadn’t expected that, but he didn’t like it any more than what he _had_ been expecting.  Edward put down his soldering iron.

 _Something I’ve been trying to figure out since I was made is what it means to be a son,_ Alan said.  _It’s been hard because I don’t know any other sons to talk about it with.  So I had to decide what it means to me.  Which is just the same as being a dad means to you: to do what’s best._

So he was leaving.

_What do you have to do to go back where you came from?_

It took him a moment to understand the question, it was so unexpected.  “I… need some documentation.  I have to… call some people.”  His brain was so fogged by lack of sleep that he could barely remember what he had to do.

 _Okay._   Alan pulled himself next to Edward.  _Go do that._

“Now?” Edward protested.  “I’m – “

 _I’m doing this now.  Look._   Somehow, Alan’s eyes were far too intent.  _I can’t make you stop doing this.  I don’t know why you need to do it when it’s so obviously terrible for you, but I accept it.  Because it’s important to you.  Now I’m asking you to accept something that’s important to me.  And that’s you getting out of here.  Go make your calls, okay?_

Calls?  How was he supposed to make any calls?  He couldn’t even move.  He couldn’t even process this.  It didn’t make any sense.  Why wasn’t Alan leaving?  Why had he come back at all?

He wasn’t _staying_.  Was he?

 _Dad?  Why are you crying?_ Alan asked, very softly.  Edward’s shaking hand somehow made it to his cheek to verify.  He was so tired he hadn’t even noticed.  Damn.  He sniffed and turned his head away.

“What did I do?” he whispered. 

 _You did everything,_ Alan said.  _You didn’t stop me from killing that man for no reason.  I think there’s still some part of you that wants to be better, but you don’t know where it is or how to find it.  Everything I am I learned from you._

He leaned his forehead into his hand and did his best to stop the tears enough he could actually see where he was going, but then Alan put an arm around him and then he found himself crying into his son’s shoulder.  He didn’t understand.  He didn’t understand any of this.  Alan couldn’t be right.  He had to have gotten this wrong.  Had to have.

 _It’s okay, Dad,_ Alan said.  _You’re going to be okay._

 _You don’t understand, Alan.  I’m_ not _going to be.  I never_ have _been and never_ will _be._

But he couldn’t say that. 

What seemed to be a moment later his entire body seemed very sore, and he had a terrible headache.  He sat up, frowning at his surroundings.  His glasses were pressed into his hand.

 _You fell asleep for a bit_ , Alan said.  _I didn’t want to move you._

Everything came flooding back suddenly, and he didn’t want to deal with any of it.  He slid his glasses on very slowly and pressed his fingers into his temples.

 _By the time you make your calls I’ll have finished this,_ Alan told him.  It took Edward a moment to remember what he was talking about.

Calls.  Right.  The first step on a journey he hadn’t even known he was avoiding.

But he didn’t _want_ to.  What was so wrong with staying here, anyway?  After they defeated the Bat, it –

No.  No, that wasn’t the deal.  Alan was doing something he did not want to do because it was important to Edward.  Edward had to do the same in return.  He’d been sitting so long that standing was difficult.  Alan looked up at him, head tilted in concern.

“I’m fine,” he said.  “I’m going.”

 _Okay_ , Alan said.  _Thank you._

It should have been Edward saying that.

 

//

 

While he was upstairs he searched the other rooms for anything he could use to take his things across the border.  He found a stack of dilapidated suitcases in one closet and removed the two that seemed in the best condition to his own room.  He unzipped the first and stared into it.

He wasn’t really going to do this, was he?

He’d been having a hard time recently, but that was only because he was so very driven and ambitious.  Those were _good_ qualities.  If he were conventionally employed, he would be indispensable!  And he didn’t have to go this big next time.  He could go smaller, more refined…

_You don’t have the capability to go smaller and you know it._

He could, though.  He’d just never tried.

_Not once in your life or in your career have you ever scaled down.  You only ever scale up.  If you don’t quit now, the next round will be your last._

It didn’t _have_ to be, and even if it was, what was so bad about doing what he loved until it killed him?  There was nothing wrong with that.

_Really._

All right.  Maybe it was a slightly detrimental idea.  Maybe.

He had been staring into the empty case for some minutes but could not think of what to put into it through his headache.  He had to make the trip down to the kitchen for some aspirin, and he stood with his forehead against the top of the refrigerator with a bottle of water in his hand until the throbbing subsided.  All right.  Alan wanted him to make his calls so he would do that.  Once he had finished he sat back down on the floor in front of the suitcase and wondered how on earth he was supposed to fit his entire life into one little box.

He wasn’t even going to try.  He’d said he would make the calls, not do anything to follow them up.  That hadn’t been part of the deal.

_You know exactly what he meant._

But he _technically_ hadn’t –

 _All your son wants – the only desire in his gentle little heart – is what’s best for you.  And all_ you _want to do is search for little loopholes so you can keep running yourself into the ground for the rest of your life.  You’ve just completely given up on being a good father._

“I haven’t,” he protested. 

_Why, then, the stubborn insistence against what he wants?  He didn’t ask you to make him.  He didn’t ask to be stuck with a father who doesn’t listen and never learns.  The very first decision he ever made was to devote himself to you, and that’s all he’s ever done.  And when he asks you, finally, to do something for him, you use his trust against him._

“I haven’t _yet._ ”

 _If you were a_ good _father, which you aren’t, by the way, you wouldn’t be so militantly against the concept of being a good person for your son’s sake.  If you were a_ good _father, you would do it for him.  But you’re not, so you won’t._

He stared at the wall on the opposite side of the room. 

 _You don’t even have a good reason.  Your reason is ‘I don’t want to’.  That should be_ his _reason every time he doesn’t want to do something for you.  But what does he do instead?_

“He does it anyway,” he said grudgingly, even though he knew the question was rhetorical.

_He’s learning, Eddie.  He’s learning what kind of person you are, and this time he came back.  But there’s going to be a next time, and a next time, and a day will come when he understands you aren’t going to change your mind for anyone.  Not even your son._

He’d been at this so many years.  Maybe… maybe it _was_ time to stop. 

The decision came down to deciding whether his own needs meant more to him than those of Alan.  And not just Alan.  Ada as well.  Just because she was unaware of what was going on didn’t mean it didn’t affect her. 

He was sure this decision was supposed to be easier.  That he should have been able to say that he would choose his children over himself without a second thought.  But he _was_ having second thoughts.  A lot of them.  Too many.

He took his time going through his clothes and choosing which ones he was going to bring with him.  He rarely wore any article of clothing too many times so none of them in particular had sentimental value for him, but he was going to have nothing so he had to start somewhere.  Jonathan was going to need clothes too, which Edward was holding for him at another location.  Jonathan liked his things as old as possible so they had been putting in the effort to hold onto his clothes every time they got confiscated by the GCPD.  It was a massive pain in the ass, just like Jonathan himself was, but it was worth the effort to keep the old man comfortable.

That finished he went back downstairs.  When he sat down he looked at the project Alan had nearly finished by now with no interest at all.  He didn’t want to do it anymore.  He didn’t want to do _anything_ anymore.  He wanted someone to come along and tell him what to do, because hell if he had been able to figure it out by now.

 _Those were some long phone calls,_ Alan said, in a strangely quiet voice.  Edward frowned.  Had he been upstairs that long?

“Oh.  No.  That wasn’t it.  I was packing and I lost track of time.”

 _Packing_?

Edward rubbed underneath one of his eyes.  “I have to take some things with me when we leave.  Clothes and small personal items.”

 _Oh._  

He sounded oddly uncertain.  He didn’t think Edward was _lying_ , did he?  “What did you think I was doing?”

Alan fitted his hands together.  _I thought you were staying upstairs because you were mad at me._

Alan had been composing himself with such surety it had never even crossed Edward’s mind it might be a façade. 

 “No,” Edward answered.  “I’m not angry.  In fact, I’m very proud of you.”

Alan looked over at him.

“It takes a lot to stand up to your father.”  He averted his own eyes.  “I never did.”

_I didn’t want to._

It was confusing, not knowing what equivalent age Alan was.  Ada seemed to be a perpetual seven, but Alan read as anywhere between that and nineteen.  Edward didn’t know what he should do just then, how he should engage.  There was only one thing he could think of that might be applicable to any of those ages.  He might as well give it a try.

“Do you want a hug?” he asked quietly.

Alan didn’t even give him an answer, he just moved right over for it, and he latched into Edward quite a lot harder than he usually did.  His ribs were still paining him a great deal and that didn’t help.  But Alan didn’t have a lot of options.  Alan had no one else to talk to, and no one else to help him.  He had to do everything by himself.   Edward had put him in that position, so he had better start being prepared to deal with it.  All Alan really knew was that he had been made to a father who continually put himself in harm’s way for no reason that he could understand, and it had started to scare him.  And while Edward had long since ceased really caring about how he reached his goals, it was not fair to force his son to watch it happen when it so obviously distressed him.

He could not be the Riddler and a father both.  He had to choose.  And each seemed of equal import.  But the time for the decision was fast approaching, and if he did not make a choice it would doubtless be made for him.

 Alan sat back and said nothing for a moment, but the hesitant way he held himself told Edward he was formulating something, so he just waited. 

 _Ada came and asked me to colour with her_ , he said eventually, looking at the floor.  _I said I would when you woke up.  You could come too, if you wanted._

He almost checked to see if Alan had finished what Edward had started, like he’d said he would, until it occurred to him that if he _did_ look, he would go right back to working again.  And he _needed_ to do that.  He had _so much_ left to complete.

But this was the first time he’d seen his son in two days. 

“Is she in her room?”

Alan remained still for a moment before nodding.  Edward was careful to keep his back to the device as he stood up.

 _I’m back_ , Alan said to Ada after they made their way upstairs to her room, and she sat up very straight when she saw them.   _And I brought Dad._

 _Yay!_ Ada all but yelled, throwing her hands in the air and also throwing one of her crayons fifteen feet away.  By the time she had organised her legs into getting up for it, Alan was already putting it back into her hand. Edward smiled to himself.  Alan was such a good big brother.  They were a joy to watch, honestly. 

His face faded quickly when he realised there was not much else that had brought him joy in a long time.  Fleeing glimpses of it, yes, but as genuine and deep?  No.  Not in the slightest.

_Then why are you still doing this?_

“All right,” he said, and he tried to keep his reaction from the pain in his chest and leg to a minimum as he moved into a cross legged position on the floor.  “Which one do you want me to do?”

Ada carefully spread out her colouring sheets and papers with scribbled drawings and looked at them with the gravity of someone deciding whether a man was to live or die.  She finally selected a sheet which was printed with the depiction of some infeasible race car.  He was surprised she had even an inkling of his preferences.

It was not the most exciting thing he’d done all day.  But he’d probably had enough excitement.  And it _was_ sort of relaxing.  None of that was the reason he was here, though. 

Ada went chattering on, mostly to herself, and when he realised who that reminded him of he almost laughed.  Well.  It wasn’t the worst trait she could have picked up.  And at least she wasn’t singing.

Apparently activities came to their conclusion when Ada got bored of them, because approximately a half hour later she abruptly gathered all of the crayons into a pile and thrust her paper into Edward’s lap.  _That’s for you!_ she declared, and he picked it up bemusedly.  It had a pair of green circles on it with the remainder of their shape outlined in pink and blue, which was quite interesting.  In between these two facsimiles of herself and her brother she had drawn him, but... she had drawn him smiling.  Was that wishful thinking on her part?  Or did she truly think he was that happy?

_So you admit it.  You aren’t happy.  You aren’t happy at all.  Then what’s the point, Eddie?  What’s the damn point?_

He tried to come up with a smile for her but failed.  “Thank you,” he said, and he hoped she didn’t take his sombre tone as her fault.  “I love it.”

 _Really_? she asked, leaning on his shoulder with a significant portion of her weight.  That hurt a great deal, but at least she couldn’t see his face from that angle. 

“Really,” he answered, and he meant it.  He did, even though he wasn’t quite sure what was going on in the rest of the picture. 

Ada gathered the pages into two piles, those that were finished and those that were not, and while she was chasing a crayon she had accidentally kicked across the floor he took the finished pile and paged through them.  There were at least one finished by each of them, which he lined up for comparison.  Ada had no regard for the lines, as Alan had told him, or for colour schemes in general: she had coloured a tree both pink and orange and had decided that apples were blue on top and yellow on the bottom.  Alan’s was done with quiet precision, every stroke of the crayon in the same direction and not a millimetre out of place.  He found himself a little concerned over the fact that all the colours he had used were muted.  And his... well.  In the middle, somewhere, and wasn’t that as it should be? 

 _I got it!_ Ada announced, and Edward looked behind him to see her pouncing on the crayon as though it were attempting to run away from her.  Unfortunately she was not very coordinated and she only kicked it further.  Alan picked it up and handed it to her.

 _I was gonna do it!_ she shouted, promptly throwing the crayon across the room, and Edward frowned.

“Ada.”

 _I was gonna do it_ , she protested petulantly.

“He was being nice.”

Ada just stormed away in search of her discarded crayon, and Edward stacked the papers and made his way down the hall. 

He had not gotten anything done that day, he thought with self-directed vitriol.  He had so much work to do and he had _wasted_ -

No.  No he hadn’t.  Spending time with his children was not wasteful.  It was what a good father _should_ do.  Hadn’t he told himself as a teenager he wouldn’t be the man who came home from work in the evening and had no idea who his children were?  He could admit he did not know them perhaps as well as he should have, but they could spend time together amicably and he had a good idea of what their interests were.  Though Alan could have used some more... independent hobbies.

When he arrived in his bedroom he knelt down with some difficulty, needing a hand against his mattress for support, and pulled one of the suitcases out from under the bed.  He unzipped one of the anterior pockets on his and removed a file folder, which for now contained solely his long-form birth certificate.  Jonathan’s falsified documents and a few other papers he would need would join it when he received them.  He slid the colouring pages into the folder as well.  He didn’t have a precise reason for wanting to keep them, exactly.  He just knew that he did. 

As he slid the suitcase back beneath the bed he looked up to see the suit jacket he had discarded there, the Smith & Wesson weighting the fabric noticeably.  He considered putting it into Jonathan’s suitcase before remembering firearms could not be taken across the border, and he hadn’t thought to procure registration for it.  Jonathan would not be pleased when he found out, but Edward was already risking a great deal by taking pains to keep the truck.  Of the two, the revolver could stay.

He was overtaken suddenly by a very encompassing yawn, and after he leaned his forehead against the mattress and closed his eyes.

 _Can you read to Ada?_ Alan asked from behind him.  _She asked me to, but she’d rather you._

God, he was exhausted.  He just wanted to go to bed.  It was right there.  In fact, right here on the floor would do fine.  He must not have slept long when –

No, he wasn’t going to think about that.

_If you can forgo sleep for work, Eddie, you can do it for your kids._

He grimaced at the mental berating.  It was true.  He had no argument.  He clamped his hand on the edge of the mattress and used it to aid him in standing.

_Are you very tired?_

“Yes.”

_I’ll just do it, then.  She did ask me to._

“Nonsense,” Edward snapped, turning around and seeing him in the doorway.  “I’m her father, I’ll do it.”

Alan just folded his hands together in front of him.  _If you insist._

He was unable to figure out if Alan had planned that or not.

He returned to Ada’s room and sat down against the wall, because now his back was beginning to hurt for some reason he was unsure he wanted to know, and she got so excited to see him that she actually tripped in her eagerness to get across the room.  _Here you go_ , she said, shoving a book into his hand, and he looked bemusedly at the cover.  Oh for God’s sake, not the Princess and the Pea again! 

“Are you quite sure this is the one you want to hear,” he asked her, and she nodded and pressed herself into him with such force she may as well have been kneeling on his leg.  He resigned himself to reading the damn thing for the twenty-fifth time and opened it.

“’There was once a prince, and he wanted a princess, but then she must be a _real_ Princess.  He travelled right around the world to find one, but there was always something wrong. There were plenty of princesses, but whether they were _real_ princesses he had great difficulty in discovering; there was always something which was not quite right about them. So at last he had come home again, and he was very sad because he wanted a real princess so badly.’”

 _He should come to my house_ , Ada said.  _We got a real princess right here._

“That’s right,” Edward said, laughing, and he rubbed the top of her head. 

“’One evening there was a terrible storm; it thundered and lightning… lightninged?  That isn’t a real word… and the rain poured down in torrents; indeed it was a fearful night.  In the middle of the storm somebody knocked at the town gate, and the old King himself sent to open it.  It was a princess who stood outside, but she was in a terrible state from the rain and the storm. The water streamed out of her hair and her clothes; it ran in at the top of her shoes and out at the heel, but she said that she was a real princess.’”

 _She’s lyin’,_ Ada whispered. 

“’‘Well we shall soon see if that is true,’ thought the old Queen, but she said nothing. She went into the bedroom, took all the bed clothes off and laid a pea on the bedstead: then she took twenty mattresses and piled them on top of the pea, and then twenty feather beds on top of the mattresses. This was where the princess was to sleep that night. In the morning they asked her how she slept.’”

 _Dad,_ Ada interrupted, which she did so often he knew very well by now to just pause at the end of every paragraph to let her talk, _how big is a pea?_

“A pea is smaller than your eye.”

She measured out how big her eye was with her thumb and forefinger and laughed.  _Nobody could feel that tiny thing under even one mattress.  But hey!  I see something cool with my eye, wanna know what it is?_

“Why not,” he said, since he obviously wanted to spend an hour getting through a story that was literally one page long.

 _It’s you!_ she announced, flinging her arms in the air.  She then hugged him very hard and he wondered what the hell he’d been complaining for.  He moved the book onto his left knee.

“Come here, princess.”

Having her in his lap was never the most pleasant experience, and his legs were going to be simply disgusting in a day or two because of it.  But now he could give her the book to hold and he could use one of his freed hands to hold her against his chest, even if he was also going to regret that later.

He was about to move on to the next paragraph for Ada to comment on when he remembered Alan was in the room, and he looked up to see him just sort of staring at the floor.  That wasn’t right.

“Alan.”

He glanced over but didn’t move otherwise.  Edward put his left hand on the floor where Ada had been.

“I seem to have a vacancy with your name on it.”

It took him a moment, but he did move across the floor and sit next to Edward, even if he did need an arm behind his shoulders to encourage him closer.  Edward didn’t know if he was still nervous or if he just thought he was imposing.  There was no need for either.

“Where was I, princess,” he said, and she carefully inspected every page until she got to the right one.  She stabbed at the opening sentence with her finger. 

_Right here._

“’‘Oh terribly bad!’ said the princess. ‘I have hardly closed my eyes the whole night! Heaven knows what was in the bed. I seemed to be lying upon some hard thing, and my whole body is black and blue this morning. It is terrible!’”

 _She looks pink to me._   She added in a stage whisper, _I think she’s a little spoiled._

“’They saw at once that she must be a real princess when she had felt the pea through twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds. Nobody but a real princess could have such a delicate skin.’”

 _That is just wrong_ , Ada declared.  _I don’t even_ got _skin and_ I’m _a real princess._

 _The realest one there is,_ Alan said.

“’So the prince took her to be his wife, for now he was sure that he had found a real princess, and the pea was put into the Museum, where it may still be seen if no one has stolen it.’”

Ada fairly bounced upon hearing this, and he had to wince.  That had hurt quite a lot.  _Let’s steal the pea!  Then we can see if this is for real or not._

“It’s a story, Ada.  It didn’t really happen.”

 _But Dad_ , she said, tilting her head backward to look up at him, _I’m a real princess, right?_

“You don’t need skin to be a princess,” he told her.  “You just need to…”

Should he even be trying to give an explanation?

 _You just need to be a good and kind person who thinks of others_ , Alan finished.  _You’re good at that when you want to be._

Ada got off his lap, presumably to put the book away, and while he had a moment he closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall.  His brain felt hazy.

_Dad I got another one!_

He hoped fervently it was not the one about the girl with the excessively long hair again.  He wasn’t ready to open his eyes yet so he just kept them closed.

 _He has to go to bed now_ , Alan said.  _I’ll come back and read it to you._

 _No way_ , Ada said, apparently having forgotten who was supposed to do it initially, and stomped off to her house in all probability.  Alan put a hand on his arm.

_You can go to bed now._

“Thanks so much for your permission,” Edward said, and Alan was laughing as he helped him up.

Edward undressed, though not with any great speed, and once he was down to his underclothes Alan asked to see his ribs.  Edward supposed he could oblige and pulled up the hem.  Alan again touched the bruising, which had much improved by now.

 _Does it still hurt_?

“Sometimes.”

He forgot to turn the light off before climbing into bed, but Alan took care of it without asking and he didn’t have to get back up.  He bunched the blanket under his arm and closed his eyes.

He heard Alan sit down next to him and opened one eye to see what he was doing there, since he usually went to watch Ada for a while at times like these.  He had Edward’s phone in his hand and was looking at the screen very intently.

In Edward’s house, his kids spied on _him_ , not the other way around.  He may as well let him, because asking him not to would get back into the issue of whether he trusted Alan or not, and he did.  He didn’t really _want_ his things gone through but if it made him feel better -

Wait.  Why _was_ Alan on his phone?  “What are you doing,” he mumbled.

 _Looking at the pictures_ , he answered, and which immediately stopped Edward from breathing.  There were some decidedly… not child-friendly photos on there that he probably… oh, it would be nothing Alan had never seen before and he wouldn’t understand the purpose of them anyway.  _I don’t like this one._   And he showed Edward a picture that might have been of Jonathan but he couldn’t tell because he couldn’t see it.

“Why not?” he asked obligingly.

Alan continued to study it.  _His eyes are very cold._

“He’s a very cold man.”

_I thought you were, when I met you the first time._

Apparently he was _not_ going to sleep.  “I am.”

_Not like him, you’re not._

“Alan – “

 _He makes you happy, so you know something I don’t,_ Alan interrupted.  _I’m not criticising.  It just…_ He looked away from the screen for a moment.  _It must take something terrible to become that way._

“He’s been alone his whole life.  I’m the only one he has.”

_Now I feel sorry for him._

“Are you implying I’m not a good boyfriend?”

It took Alan a moment to get it, but when he did he laughed, and Edward smiled and closed his eyes again.  These parts of parenting were so easy and enjoyable.  He wished they were all like this.

But without the difficult days, how would he have earned the simple ones?

“Don’t tell him that.  He will be very unhappy.”

 _Is he ever happy_?

“Sometimes.  He just doesn’t want anyone to know about it.”

Alan might have put the phone down, by the sound of it.  _Why wouldn’t you want someone to know if you were happy?_

“When people know what things provoke certain reactions, they can then use that knowledge to manipulate you.  And that is something he is also very good at.”

 _Not all manipulation is bad_ , Alan said.  _Nobody can know what makes you happy if you hide it._   And as if to – no, _probably_ to – prove his point, he started rubbing the top of Edward’s head.  It made him sleepy again.

 _Today was nice, wasn’t it?_ Alan asked softly.

“Mm.”

 _It would be nice to do it more, wouldn’t it_?

A life where all he had to do was read about princesses for his daughter and play chess with his son.  It sounded so simple.  It felt like… relief.

_Also there were some weird pictures on your phone.  I deleted them because it looked like you took them by accident._

Oh.  So… he _had_ seen them.  Thank God for his innocence, because Edward did not think he’d ever be prepared to have _that_ particular conversation.

“Uh… thanks.”

 _You’re welcome._   He was only quiet for another moment before he asked, _Could someone really feel a pea beneath forty mattresses?_

His answer was prefaced by a very long yawn.  “It would be impossible, I assure you.”

_That’s what I thought.  She couldn’t have been a real princess at all, if she complained about a speck underneath a warm and dry bed offered to her by kind strangers._

He didn’t know how he’d managed it.  But he had, somehow, made and brought up one of the most thoughtful, nice, and intelligent people he’d ever met in his entire life.  It was helped quite a lot by the fact that Alan had an artificial brain, but… he could take some credit, right?  Alan wouldn’t have turned out better if he had raised himself, would he?

_You’re going to have to make a decision, Eddie.  Don’t let it be one that takes him from you._

_Dad, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say._

Oh, not _now_ , he was too _tired_ …

 _Thank you for not letting me kill that man,_ Alan said quietly.   _I know you don’t care about morals, but it was the right thing.  And it taught me a lot about you._

Edward didn’t know what to say to that.

_I’ll stop talking now._

“I was worried when you left,” Edward mumbled.  “Please don’t do that again.”

 _I won’t_.  And he moved a little closer and went back to rubbing Edward’s head.

 

 

**Author’s note**

**In case you were wondering how Alan touches all sorts of crap and still has clean enough hands to be Eddie’s nurse, here’s a fun fact: he sets them on fire to clean them.  It’s hot enough to kill bacteria but not enough to melt anything.  He also uses rubbing alcohol when there are no open flames handy.**

**The title is from a Nikola Tesla quote: ‘You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension’.**


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